PAPER GIVEN AT THE ART THERAPIST CONFERENCE IN OHIO

PAPER GIVEN AT THE ART THERAPY GATHERING IN OHIO

It is a pleasure to be here with you and as you know I am a performance artist but I will address the concept of forgiveness and then show you videos of my work demonstrating the ways I use my own life issues as fodder and material for my art transformations. Thank you.

It is never too late. We are allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll walking wounded. Life wounds us, people wound us our family dynamic wounds us. These wounds are sent into the subconscious and with therapy, prayer and 908343281439-8 other techniques, they are brought to the surface and analyzed and eventually healed. Each person has their own technique. When there is a trauma, we are triggered and the old wounds appear.
With our parents, unless there is a conscious and heart-felt program of looking at and healing the wounds as a family at home while growing up, the surgical scars begin to be remembered and there is great reaction like anger, pain and rage, when the pot gets stirred by traumas. Divorce and death ARE change and unsettle the equilibrium and these old "triggers" emerge. There is often a PAYBACK because things that were never settled or ways of relating that were painful get to become cards in the playing deck....He did this, he said this, she , we never, he never, we always, this happened in 19.... etc. And when there is a chance to retaliate, we do it...that is natural.....buttttttttttttt, it is also a chance to unearth the past and to deal with it in a new way.
The hurt of a currrent and present situation dredges up the whole mess and deep and unforgiven or UNCOMMUNICATED OR UNHEALED old patterns are remembered.

  We are ALLLLLLLLLLL walking timberboxes for sure, waiting for a match. Divorce is a match, death is a match, and unless the match is extinguished, the suffering of the present thing gets complicated with old hurts. Our memories of 30 years ago come to the surface and we hurt 3209874023894 times more now because of these complications. We wanted THE OTHER PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEN..... AND NOW we want them to change. THEY WONT! Only we individually can and HOW is the question for each of us to find .... This is where it is never too late comes in...If we are reared to suffer, we can change that pattern and choose more positive ways of living the rest of our lives; if we are raised to complain or to be dictated to or a myriad of other patterns that are not healthy, there is always a chance for healing.

Each person chooses their own path of healing. But we have to remember that WE ARE ADDICTED TO THE PATTERN WE LEARNED AS CHILDREN and the person we want things from is also ADDICTED TO THEIR PATTERN that they think is just FINE!

BREAKING ADDICTION to the past pattern is a tedious, thankless job but a necessary one. And we cant expect anyone else to break theirs..... Win-win communication/everything is my wish for allllllllllllllll of US here at this conference...yes US.

 Our own parents did the best they could but we cant lag behind and not upgrade our ways of communicating and loving when traumatic things happen because that is a waste of time and talent. If money was the families drug of choice then WHAT IS OUR NEW METHADONE? How do we find people, places and group therapies to help us out of our own hell-holes? How do we add positive "drugs" to our tool box? Do we say: Im sorry? I did wrong? I was wrong? This should have never have happened ? Why did u? You hurt me when...I didnt get the right love, attention, time, or communication? Who do we say this to? Ourselves? Parents? God? Learning how to decipher our wounds and hurts is sometimes learning a new language as difficult as Checkoslvakian......But worth the try. You tube has many examples of healing modalities from around the world to study and learn from.And later on I will share some of my videos that demonstrate my aesthetic healing process.

  Our "WORK" as ART THERAPISTS is TO GIVE ourselves new SKILLS TO REVERSE old DAMAGES AND THEY dont come easy and are tiresome to learn and hard to find the right situation to learn them with and in.......... because trust/trusting that a new positive life can happen is never easy to receive or learn or even ask for. And trusting people is next to an impossible thing to learn! But has to happen....So when you are dealing with clients who are diffident or slow in trusting, be patient and remember your won process in your own days of trauma and grief and anger. The funny thing is that the more we all get into the muck and mire and totally putridness of the past and really look at it and dredge it and not FEAR IT and mine it for the information it has, the HEART begins to open to MORE APPRECIATION and love for those we think caused us pain and now our parents/or the enemy/ or the problem maker can be truly appreciated for thepossibility they gave us to grow and for the sacrifices and care they gave us and parents are understood for having done the best they could do given THEIR LIFE STORIES AND TRAUMAS...

Seeds get sown out of the shit. So dont run from the stench, just use it. It is a very rich emotional time for all when bad things happen to good people! The "death" that is experienced is not physical but the opportunity is for ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL to get on our knees, learn, get the emotional help we ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL NEED so the remaining time here is one of peace, inner joy and compassion.

IN art, process, new doors opening and solidarity,
A Fellow Traveler On The Path To Inner Peace.

Thank you and now I will share 4 videos that illustrate my method of making art of/from my life traumas.